0:03Skip to 0 minutes and 3 secondsWelcome to week four of the Importance Of Money In Business. This week we will be focusing on the methods businesses use to measure, and report their achievements to interested parties and the wider world. At the end of last week we asked you what you thought were the main ingredients of a successful business. We put the same question to a range of people about their own businesses. I would actually say the importance of having good people around you, the importance of having mentors, the importance of having support. You can measure just about everything in business, and the measurement doesn't necessarily have to be in pounds or dollars.

0:47Skip to 0 minutes and 47 secondsYes, you can measure your sales, and your growth of your sales, and I think that is one measure of success. You can measure your bottom line profit, and your growth of profit. But that of course is essential, because there's no point in doing anything unless you produce good profits in the long run. I think, to be honest, the most important is the management, and the sales function. If you look at, for instance, Richard Branson, his business started selling records. There are many business that did that, but I think it was the fact that he did it in a different way. That sort of brought about his success, and he's expanded into many different areas.

1:21Skip to 1 minute and 21 secondsMoney is such an important part of the successful recognition of business. Business thrives on investment, and thrives on capital. Without that capital, you can't grow. Money ultimately also for the employees means that they get paid at the end of every month. It means the suppliers get paid for the product that they've given to you. Without that flow, you don't have a business. Clearly, success comes in many forms, not all of them financial. But the common view from the people to whom we spoke is that however you define success, its foundations are the same. You have to believe in what you are doing, have good people on whom you can rely, work hard, and be able to manage cash.

The week ahead

Welcome to the final week of the course, which is all about success.

This week we will look at how organisations, including both businesses and not-for-profit entities, measure success and communicate this to external parties, called stakeholders.

In this video, Peter is joined by a number of our business experts. We asked them what they thought were the key ingredients of a successful business. You’ll see that we got a number of different answers.

What’s next?

In the first section of the course this week, we’ll look at how organisations use financial information to measure and analyse their success.